


drunken phrenology

by sleepinnude



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling, Hungover!Cas, Jack Kline and Claire Novak are Like Siblings, M/M, Morning After, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Sharing a Bed, drunk!Cas, the boys are soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26700997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude
Summary: They get Cas drunk, really drunk, for the first time, which means that Dean has to care for a drunk Cas. They share a bed, they discuss each others’ faces.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 105
Kudos: 495





	1. two-for-one picklebacks

**Author's Note:**

> hi, this is finished! next chapter will be up sometime later today or tomorrow, and then the last chapter by this weekend!
> 
> you may have already read the first draft, quick-ficlet version of this on my tumblr. there's a few added scenes/images/etc in this version but the first and second chapters will be largely the same.

When they arrived back at the motel (after washing the graveyard dirt and bone ash out of their hair), Dean peers out the window, across the parking lot to the lows-lung bar there. It looked to be middling between a dive-joint and a commercialized-chain. Actually, the buzzing neon and polished wood facade reminded Dean a little bit of Lee's place. He swallows past that bubble of hurt though, and points across the way. "Celebratory drinks?" he suggests.

Sam passes him a look that clearly voices his answer. He was already in bed, in pajamas, with his laptop open. Dean can tell from the way he's scrolling, though, that he's on reddit, not trolling for a new case so at least he's relaxing. Cas, though, tilts his chin at the suggestion. He had tugged on jeans, a tee shirt and a flannel after his shower so Dean would bet he's in.

Plus, they've been back on the Human Lessons kick. So far, Cas has only had beer and never more than two at a time.

"Cas?" Dean offers with a grin. "Wanna learn how to get drunk?"

"I...would like to have drinks with you," Cas answers, which isn't a yes but it functions enough like one.

Sam jerks his head up and meets Dean's eyes pointedly. Dean raises his eyebrows in question. "Just remember you two are bunking tonight," Sam says, pointing to the next bed over.

"We'll be fine!" Dean insists, hustling the former-angel out of the door.

*

“It’s very strange,” Cas says intensely, as if working out the intricacies of an ancient spell. “Because pickle juice is not enjoyable on its own.”

“I hear ya, buddy,” Dean says, concealing his laugh not quite as well as he might hope. They're probably four or five rounds in and if they hadn't been pacing themselves, if there hadn't been the orders of fries in between, he's not sure that either of them would be conscious. As it is, they're just...very drunk. Which, Dean has been very drunk before. He's been more than very drunk, he can handle himself. Which means that Cas can just let loose and experience the new sensation. Dean's enjoying watching that.

“But drinking it directly after the whiskey is very enjoyable.” Cas is turning the little fluted shot glass, holding up to the light, and examining the few dregs of pickle juice still clinging. Cas squints at the glass, then, decisively, he sets it down and turns on Dean. “I would like another, please.”

Dean does laugh then, a little exhale, and drops his hand to Cas’s shoulder. “I dunno about that, Cas. I think you’ve had enough.” Dean remembers, ten years back now, Cas going shot-for-shot with Ellen and not even flinching. He remembers, a year before that, Cas staggering to them coming off a bender because there was no God. This is different, either way. He's not despairing, hands between knees, asking Dean what to do. He's smiling and his shoulders are dropped and easy and he hasn't looked away from Dean more than a few times in the past hour.

“I have frequently watched you drink to excess,” Cas reasons, still squinting. The collar of his flannel is tweaked and he has one sleeve rolled up his arm, the other flopping, cuff open, around his wrist. He's a former bad ass of the Lord so it feels a little weird to think of his as adorable but, well, it's not the first time.

“That may be true," Dean reasons, "but it’s not something you should look to emulate, buddy. C’mon. You’ll learn the rapturous joy of a bed when you’re smashed, okay.” He stands up and helps Cas do the same, waving a hand over his shoulder to the bartender. He had settled up when he ordered the last pair of picklebacks for them, maybe ten minutes ago.

As they push out of the bar and into the cool October night, Cas proving to need some help. Dean slips an arm under his -- with the height he has on Cas it pitches Cas's shoulder up, their faces close. 

"Do you think," Cas starts, turning toward Dean. His sentence trails when their eyes meet, when he becomes aware, too, of how close their faces are. The point of his nose is brushing the well of Dean's cheek. Dean has spent more minutes than he'd like to admit considering the point of Cas's nose.

A stretch of silence lingers. Dean swallows, tries to focus on getting them across the parking lot to their motel. Cas's eyes are still on him, muddled from all that whiskey but still a searing blue (Dean had half-thought that the pigment would fade out when Cas dropped to full human, with no grace behind it. But no, it turned out that really was just the color of his eyes.)

“Dean,” Cas says seriously, voice a wrecked rasp. “Your nose is crooked.”

A dizzy sort of relief hurtles through Dean. He was waiting for him to say something - else. “Yeah. Well, that’s what happens when it’s been broken over and over, you know. Monsters got no respect for the money-maker.”

“You’re still….very attractive, though.”

Dean pulls up at that, something else, indeed. “Thanks, Cas.”

“You’re welcome.”

Dean leaves it at that and they continue their shuffle across the pavement. He counts his every breath, trying to pass the distance without paying any attention to Cas's warm, pliant body tucked so close to him. They're nearly there when Cas stops completely.

“Dean,” he says again, just as urgent and solemn as before.

“Yeah, buddy?”

Cas’s eyes are on his and the pupils are blown in the dark. There’s a flush high over his cheeks and along the bridge of his nose and all Dean can think about is how adorable he’s going to look tomorrow morning, hungover to Hell with his hair in a million directions and the collar of his tee shirt all soft and rumpled.

Then, Cas tells him, “I think I’m going to vomit.”

Well.

He gets Cas over to the patch of grass overgrown with weeds next to their motel and he does, indeed, vomit. It’s a short affair, though, not too bad. It can’t be fun for Cas, but Dean gets to run his hand along the former angel’s spine and shoulders, let his fingers dip over the nape of his neck as he murmurs, “All right, buddy. There ya go. You’re all right.” 

When Cas stands upright, he looks marginally better than before. Eyes a little clearer and mouth not so slack. He only leans against Dean some as they head for their motel room. “You’re a champ, man,” Dean tells him with only half-affected pride, shouldering the door open.

As he deposits Cas onto the nearest bed, Cas replies, "I don't feel like a champ."

Dean laughs at that and Sam smiles, still sitting up in bed. His grin is fond and amused and maybe it's the whiskey but Dean thinks how this is nice, being surrounded by his family.

“Did you boys have fun?” Sam teases. He slides across the bed, though, and the two of them get Cas's boots off for him.

“Two for one picklebacks,” Dean answers. “Gotta love Pennsyltucky.”

“I vomited,” Cas supplies helpfully as Dean wrestles him out of his flannel, and Sam lets out a bark of a laugh.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes," Sam says. He pats Cas on the shoulder once and then slips under the covers of his own bed.

Dean putters around for a few more minutes -- makes Cas drink a glass of water and then refills it to set on the side-table. Waits until he's sure Cas isn't going to puke again and then coaxes him into taking a few aspirin. Then they're all in bed, Dean laid out next to Cas and holding very still, and the lights are off.

“Sam,” Cas says after a moment, sounding calm but insistent. He flops a little on the bed, toward Sam's bed.

“You all right, Cas?” Sam asks the darkness

“Your brother’s nose is crooked,” Cas says with the same gravity as reciting biblical goddamn prophecies.

Sam laughs at that for longer than Dean thinks is warranted. Instead of any annoyance, though, he just feels that same comfortable, familiar warm spread through his chest.

“I find it endearing, though.”

“You should tell him that, Cas,” Sam says and Dean can’t see it but he knows Sam’s smile is eating shit.

"Yes," Cas agrees, and then he's wiggling, flipping over to face Dean and scooting into his personal space. Without a blink of hesitation, he plants his forehead against Dean's. Dean thinks their eyelashes would tangle if they were any closer. "Dean. Your crooked nose is endearing. It is...charming. I like it on your face." And then, after a soft moment where his eyes drift closed, "I like your face."

There's something ratcheting high in his chest, but Dean's smile is easy. He puts a hand to Cas's shoulder. “Thanks, Cas. I like your face too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [rebloggable here!](https://joharvele.tumblr.com/post/630526757350604800/drunken-phrenology-13-a-deancas-fic)


	2. morning after

Cas wakes overly warm and with a soreness in his head that he’s never experienced before. He's had headaches, he's had a concussion, he's been punched in the face. This is none of those things and, also, all those things at once. Before he wakes up any further, he lets out a soft whine at the pain and burrows further into his pillow. It’s hot and a little sweaty and too firm, but that's preferable to the light that exists outside. Light, he's finding, is very bad for this terrible head pain.

Then his pillow shifts and laughs a little and something in Castiel goes alert. His hand curves along what is, of course, an arm and the rest of reality settles in. Right next to the headache. Pickle juice. He was spectacularly drunk last night and he, among other things, told Dean he liked his face. At least it wasn't a lie.

Cas pulls back from what he now knows is Dean's chest and blinks against the hated sun. "Hello, Dean," he says - his voice is harsh and his throat aches at the very back when he speaks. But Dean is smiling down at him, soft green eyes and open face. Cas drops himself onto his back, into the half of the bed he abandoned last night so there's some space between them.

Dean props up on his side, peering down at him still. “How ya feeling, buddy?” 

“I’ve woken up better.”

Dean laughs. He lifts a hand toward Cas’s temple but then catches himself, stops. Cas finds himself disappointed – the pressure of Dean's palm would have soothed the steady, deep ache in his head, he thinks. Or, maybe, he just wants Dean to touch him.

“I’ll bet you have,” Dean says. He wiggles away a little, sitting up further and reaching across the bed, across Cas. Back in focus, Dean holds a glass of water in front of Cas who is suddenly parched.

Sitting up to drink the water in a series of gulping swallows, Cas takes stock of their room. Sam’s bed is empty, covers haphazardly tugged up, and his laptop is closed on the table. Dean's phone is laying near his hip on the bed so Cas assumes he’s been up for some time, entertaining himself...while Cas sleep alongside him. Judging by the absolutely infernal light coming in from the window, it’s the middle of the morning. Not late by their standards, especially since all they have to do today is head home.

“How’s your stomach feel?” Dean asks as Cas finishes the water. They’re both sitting against the headboard, legs hovering close.

“Fine,” Cas answers, after considering a moment. And then, with horrifying clarity, he remembers puking next to motel. “I vomited last night.”

Dean laughs again, rubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah, and we didn’t brush your teeth so that might be why your mouth is extra gross. But it’s good that your stomach feels okay.” Grinning, he adds, "You were a real champ."

"You said that last night," Cas says, with the same level of confusion he met the comment with the night before. Making a face, Cas slips out bed. He didn't feel like a "champ" last night and he certainly doesn't feel like one now. The cool air out of the bed feels better, at least, but it also alerts him to the uncomfortable sensation of dried sweat on his skin. “I’m going to…brush my teeth.”

He does that, twice, and then showers and takes an extra long moment under the spray. The vacuum pound of the water around him makes the ache in his head abate a little. A hand to his jaw explores what Dean once called _peach fuzz_. As a human, Cas has found that he liked having facial hair. His hand trails up from his jaw to the bridge of his nose, the cartilage there.

When Cas emerges from the bathroom, clean and in fresh clothes, he finds Dean sitting at the foot of their bed, grinning at his phone. “Sam is at that diner just down the street so we can meet him if you’re up for some food, and coffee.”

Cas eyes brighten and he lets out a dreamy sigh. “Coffee.” He can brave the cursed sun if it means coffee.

Dean grins broader. “Yeah, buddy, let’s get your fix.” He stands but doesn’t head for the door. Instead, he sidles closer to Cas, head tilting a little and bottom lip caught under his teeth. Cas thinks, suddenly, of another motel room, years past, and Dean's body between his and a bathroom counter. _Personal space._ It seems Dean has forgotten that conversation, a decade gone. “So," he says, still smiling. "My nose is crooked, huh?”

Cas swallows. He looks at the nose in question - again, he didn't lie. It was crooked, it was endearing, Castiel liked it. He looks at his own nose, vision blurring and eyes crossing. Dean doesn’t smell like bed sheets and stale sweat, is the thing. He doesn't smell like Cas smelled when he woke up. He didn't smell that way when Cas woke up, nose deep in the pocket of his collar. Dean smells like the body wash and shampoo they share. He smells like… Like he rose well before Cas, showered, changed his shirt, and then returned to bed.

“I also said that it was charming,” Castiel finally replies.

“You also said that you like my face.”

“ _You_ also said that you like _my_ face,” Cas counters, terribly uncertain of what this conversation is, really. He finds that a lot with Dean - they talk about things, say things, that aren't necessary: the weather, an actor's costuming, guesses about passers-by lives. Cas doesn't understand, but Dean is smiling and his eyes are soft and he’s standing close and all those are very nice things. Especially against the sore, hollow pain behind Cas’s eyes.

“Yeah, well.” Dean reaches up and this time doesn’t stop his hand. It nudges against Cas's chin, brushing against the scruff there. _Peach fuzz_. “It’s a good face.” In the next minute, Dean is turning away, heading for the door. “C’mon. Let’s get you a nice, big, greasy breakfast. Best thing for a hangover.”

“And coffee?” Cas confirms as they break into the morning sun.

Dean stops at the Impala to dig a pair of sunglasses out of the glovebox for Cas. Cas thanks him, quietly. They walk to the diner together, hands almost brushing. They sit on the same side of the booth, across from Sam, legs pressed together. Cas can't say if it's the coffee or the sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich, or those points of contact that soothes his hangover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: the boys get drunk again!


	3. beers and bumps

Jack returns from his stay at Jody’s with Claire in tow. The two have become thick as thieves in a way that Dean isn’t sure is an entirely positive force for the universe. That becomes directly apparent when, after Cas shares his drunken experience on the hunt, Claire’s eyes light up and she turns to Jack. They whisper together for a minute and then both turn to Cas in unison. Jack’s eyes aren’t the exact same shade as Cas and Claire’s but it’s close enough to give Dean horror flashbacks to _The Shining_.

“No,” he says, pointing. “Whatever those smiles mean, no.” Jack and Claire’s identical grins don’t even flinch.

“We were just thinking that we wanted to have a drink with our...surrogate father figures.” Claire loops her arm through Jack’s and they’re still smiling and it is, frankly, pants-shittingly terrifying.

“Absolutely not,” Dean says. Next to him, Sam is laughing into his tea and pretending not to be.

Cas, unfortunately, smiles serenely. He, unlike Dean, holds no suspicions about the Claire-and-Jack wonder-twin team-up. He’s elated that they’re getting along, that the girl who was the daughter of his vessel and the half-angel who imprinted on him in utero like a duckling have sibling bonded. “I would like that,” he says, tipping his head to Dean. “Just one drink couldn’t hurt, after all.”

“Yeah, it’s basically a rite of passage,” Claire says. And, no it isn't, but now Dean has their creepy-stares and Cas’s guileless, pleading smile on him. If only Sam would back him up on what a bad idea this is, but Sam is just moving to put his mug in the sink.

“We should make it a whole night,” the traitor formerly known as Dean’s brother says at the doorway. “You know, movie, popcorn, drinks. Celebrating the successful hunt.”

Dean would counter that the drinks which got Cas drunk in the first place were supposed to be the celebration, but Sam is already ducking out of the kitchen and yelling that he’ll queue up some good movies. 

Then Claire shouts, “We’ll make the popcorn!” and suddenly it’s just Cas and Dean sitting at the table.

And Cas is looking at him all sincere and sweet and Dean can’t think of much beyond the press of Cas’s body against his as he helped him across the parking lot, the press of Cas’s body against his as they shared the motel bed, the press of Cas’s body against his as they sat together in the diner the next morning.

“I’m very excited,” Cas says and, really, then, so is Dean.

*

“It’s called a boilermaker,” Claire says, doling out shot glasses and bottles.

“Big pause button,” Dean says, claiming his seat next to Cas. “I said we could all have a beer together. There was no agreement about hard liquor.”

“Oh my god,” Claire drawled. “It is one shot of Jim Beam. Calm down, old man.” Jack giggles at either Claire’s insult or the affronted look that shutters over Dean’s face from it.

“Beer and a bump!” Sam exclaims and there’s a smile on his face that makes him look all of twenty-two again and, okay, yeah. That doesn’t suck. “Man, that takes me back…” He stretches out in the armchair, shot glass in one hand and beer in the other.

Dean, despite himself, has to grin a little nodding. “We always called it the two-step,” he says, scooping up his shot glass once Claire tops it off.

Cas takes the next glass that Claire fills and examines the whiskey in it. “I believe, in Philadelphia exclusively, it’s known as a ‘citywide’.”

“Okay, well, Philadelphia sucks,” Claire comments. “But if we were doing tequila and Tecate it’d be a Desperado.” They all have their shots in hand and their beers opened at the ready. Claire lifts her shot over the low-slung table and grins. “Here’s to…” Her eyes sweep from Cas to Jack, “Here’s to family.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Dean says, smiling softly. They all clink glasses, down their shot, and take a drink from their beer. There’s muddled sounds of sucking teeth and sharp inhales, Sam muttering darkly about Jim Beam.

“Wait!” Jack says, and then he reaches for the bottle of whiskey and all the warmth Dean started to feel toward the twosome fades. “Wait, I have a toast I wanna make. We have to go again.”

“Why don’t we just use the beers?” Dean suggests, very much on to their game.

“What are you, the fun police?” Claire cuts in. Once more, Jack giggles and Dean adds more bullet points under the “Negative” column of this sudden partnership.

So they round up again and Cas is smiling blindingly as he watches Jack hold up his glass and toast to his sister, Claire, so Dean can begrudgingly let them get away with it. But then Claire wants to toast to her brother and very suddenly Dean’s fear of being duped by a four year old in a twenty year old’s body and Hunter Barbie Deluxe Edition are coming true.

*

The movie Sam chose is Jurassic Park but it definitely doesn’t matter. He and Claire are playing a drinking game (drink every time a dinosaur is named, every time Dr. Sattler is sassy, every time you’re inexplicably attracted to Jeff Goldblum) but no one else is paying attention. Certainly not Dean, because about five minutes in, Cas canted a little to the side and leaned full into Dean’s arm. So, yeah, Dean kind of stopped paying attention to the movie, or the drinking game, or anything else happening in the room.

“I forgot about your eyelashes,” Cas says.

Dean sucks it up and wiggles his arm from where it’s wedged between him and Cas, slinging it over the back of the couch instead. This drops Cas completely into his side, face tucked up on his shoulder. “What’s that?” Dean asks. Everything is moving a little too fast. Or a little too slow. Either way, he didn’t quite catch what Cas said.

“Your eyelashes. They’re very long. Delicate. It took me hours to get them right.”

“What d’you mean, get them right?” Dean is thinking about sketchbooks, about Cas curled up in the library with a pencil in his hand, drawing him.

“When I rebuilt you, Dean,” Cas says, with the attitude of a spouse who has already explained this, several times, and is annoyed that they're being asked about it again.

“Oh, right, of course.” Dean swallows and with how close Cas is, he wouldn’t be surprised if he could feel the movement. 

Cas reaches out with just one finger, stroking carefully along the fan of Dean’s eyelashes. “The eyes are incredibly intricate organs. And yours are so unique.” Cas straightens up a little at that, and Dean can feel the blush on his cheeks spreading to his ears. “Did you know that only two percent of the world’s population has green eyes?”

Dean laughs but it’s not really because anything is funny. It’s more before this man who used to be an angel is pressed up against him and their faces are so close and they’re both very drunk. It’s more because their daughter-niece and son-nephil conned them into drinking too much whiskey. It’s because Sam and Claire are pointedly watching the movie, a little too pointedly, and Jack is sitting cross-legged on the floor, head pillowed on his arms on the coffee table and looking directly at them with a dreamy smile.

“All right,” Dean says. He stands, but slowly, so he doesn’t cast Cas off balance. “I think that’s a night for me.” Clearing his throat, Dean meets Cas’s eyes, and then helps him to his feet. “Let’s get you to bed, buddy.”

Cas nods and Dean ignores the smirks and overly-cheerful “Good night!”s howled from Claire, Jack, and Sam. They trail out of the Dean Cave and into the network of halls and it’s deja vu all over again, the other night when he and Cas were leaning against each other to get across the parking lot.

“Dean,” Cas says.

“Uh, listen if you gotta puke the bathroom is pretty close, okay? You think you can make it a little farther?”

“No, I don’t have to vomit.”

That’s a relief but Dean is honestly surprised. His own stomach is rolling from the whiskey and the beer. And maybe from the way that Cas’s hand has slipped under the one side of his flannel so it’s just his warm palmprint against the side of his waist. Dean is pretty sure his heart is where it’s supposed to be, in the middle of his chest, but he can still feel his pulse under Cas’s hand.

“I was going to say that I believe Claire and Jack, and perhaps even Sam, conspired against us tonight.”

Dean laughs and hoists Cas a little higher. Which proves to be a mistake because it makes the hand on his waist drop a little lower and now it’s cupped around the bell of his hip. “Yeah, I think you got that right.”

Cas doesn’t say anything for some distance but his hand is a solid weight. The hem of Dean’s tee shirt starts to ride up a little which means that Cas’s fingers are rough and right up against the bare skin of Dean’s hip. The motion of his walking means that Cas’s pinkie ends up dipping into the waistband of his jeans and that’s a lot for Dean’s whiskey-and-beer soaked nerves.

And let it be known that all ten years of Dean’s repression and guilt and self-loathing were broken, more or less, in one night thanks to the efforts of one kid who didn’t even have good cinematic taste, one half-kid, half-angel who still thought spreading nutella and pretzel sticks on a slice of bread was “lunch,” and the traitor formerly known as Dean’s brother Sam.

They’re just outside the door to Dean’s bedroom when he whirls Cas around, gets his back pinned against the wall and stands so their chests are pressed together, their noses brushing. 

“Dean,” Cas says and it’s half a statement, half a question.

“I swear to God, man, if you start talking about my nose, or my eyelashes again…”

“Dean,” Cas says and it's definitely a statement this time.

Dean sighs out something shuddery and bows his head. He's faintly aware of Cas’s lips brushing along the line where his forehead meets his hair. “Okay.” Dean says, eyes on the worn collar of the tee shirt that Cas is wearing. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to go into my room and we’re going to drink some water and take some advil and drink some more water. And then we’re going to go to sleep.” He feels the rustle of Cas’s nod but just plows ahead, “And then, in the morning, if… If it’s something that you’d want.. If it’s something that you’re interested in, once you’re sober, then I’m going to kiss you, okay?”

“I can assure you, Dean, that I will want to kiss you in the morning.” Dean tilts his chin up, just enough so he can see Cas’s eyes. He’s smiling; they both are. “I want to kiss you tonight. I… I always want to kiss you. I have for a long time.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Dean exhales because he’s realized, with the impact of a semi-truck, just how stupid they’ve been. Mostly him, but Cas isn’t getting completely off the hook either.

Dean lifts his head a little more and he’s looking down at Cas through his lashes now, he’s looking at Cas’s lips. “Okay. Quick revision to the plan. I’m going...to kiss you now. And then the water, et cetera. And then, in the morning, when we’re sober, we kiss again.”

“I’m amenable,” Cas says and he’s smiling that huge smile, the one that Dean has only really started seeing in the last year or so, since he went full mortal.

Dean lets his hands drift from Cas’s arms to over his shoulders and he pulls him into more of an embrace and Cas’s hands tighten over Dean’s hips and, just like that, they’re kissing. Like it's always been that simple. Dean means to keep it G-rated, he really does, just the press of lips but, well, _ten years_ , man. Their lips end up parting and their hips are matched and Dean can taste the beer on Cas’s tongue. Dean’s hand gets into Cas’s hair and Cas’s hand gets under Dean’s tee shirt.

Dean lets it go on for only a few seconds longer before pulling away. “Fuck,” he swears.

Cas cants closer but it’s only to bump their foreheads together. “Tomorrow morning,” he trails. “After we kiss again?”

“Yeah?” Dean asks and his chest is fizzing with the implication and he’s blushing from nose to ears and back again.

“Will you make me a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich?”

Dean bursts into a bright bubble of laughter at that. He kisses Cas again, swift and hard and sure. “Yeah, buddy. I’ll even make you some coffee, too.”  
“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says, and it’s so sincere you’d think Dean just swore fealty to the guy instead of just agreed to make a hangover breakfast.

“C’mon. Let’s get to bed.” Dean leans over and opens his door, maneuvering them into the room with mildly clumsiness.

“Don’t forget all the water and medicine,” Cas says. The door closes softly behind them.

*

The next morning, Dean makes hangover-breakfast sandwiches and coffee for all and pretends not to notice when Claire and Jack high-five across the table. Cas stands behind him at the stove the whole time, pressed into his back and muttering about the evils of whiskey.

“I know, bud,” Dean soothes with a smile, hand reaching around to pat Cas gently, low on his back. Cas burrows his face further into Dean’s neck.

“How are you not hungover?” Sam asks, glaring as Dean whistles happily and deftly flips an egg.

“Oh, I am,” Dean says. Against the nape of his neck he can feel the curve of Cas’s smile. 

Much better than coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading! please let me know what you think :)  
> [ rebloggable post](https://joharvelebutaghost.tumblr.com/post/631187279945285632/drunken-phrenology-33-a-deancas-fic)


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